Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) currently intend to close fifty-four schools before the year is over. This means Chicago is likely to have the largest number of school closures in any city in America this year. President of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), Karen Lewis, has declared, “Closing 50 of our neighborhood [...]

Three Occupy activists known as the “NATO 3,” who came to Chicago to protest at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit last May and were arrested and later indicted on terrorism charges, are challenging the constitutionality of an untested Illinois anti-terrorism statute under which they were charged. Lawyers submitted a motion in court today asserting the [...]

A whistleblower lawsuit on behalf of two Chicago police officers has been filed in federal court. The suit alleges the officers faced retaliation after they discovered one of their fellow officers, Sergeant Ron Watts, was “robbing drug couriers and manufacturing a case against at least one confidential informant” at the Ida B. Wells public housing [...]

A judge ruled that Chicago’s park curfew ordinance is unconstitutional and dismissed over 90 cases against people who participated in an Occupy Chicago protests in October when they tried to occupy Grant Park with tents and were arrested. Cook County Court Judge Thomas Donnelly wrote in his decision and in regards to arrestees’ claims the curfew is [...]

Nearly two years ago, the FBI raided the homes of nine antiwar, labor and international solidarity activists in Chicago, Michigan and Minnesota. The activists, along with fourteen others, were issued subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury empaneled to investigate the activists for providing “material support to terrorism.” Each activist refused to testify because [...]

Eighteen year-old Muslim American Adel Daoud was arrested in Chicago on September 14 after a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) undercover sting operation, where he allegedly tried to set off a car bomb outside of a bar. The story reported by local Chicago news and other media outlets credited the FBI with thwarting a plot by an individual intent on killing Americans.

In Union Park in Chicago thousands of educators and supporters of the Chicago Teachers Union gathered for a solidarity rally. People from out-of-state, like Minnesota and Wisconsin, were there to show support. After a two-hour rally, everyone marched to Garfield Park. There were students, parents and representatives from teachers unions, including the Illinois Federation of [...]

Politicians, journalists, liberal pundits and so-called education reform advocates are employing spin and misinformation to condemn and criticize the Chicago Teachers Union strike. It’s important to note that Chicago is being used as the latest laboratory for anti-union privatization measures that some big business Democrats and Republicans hope to implement across the country. Firedoglake has [...]

The Chicago Teachers Union went on strike on September 10. At least twenty-six thousand educators have been taking a stand in the streets, for a fair contract and for reductions in class sizes, the provision of social services for children, a halt to the expansion of charter schools and an end to “turnarounds” and school [...]

As Firedoglake has been covering all day, twenty-six thousand educators went on strike in Chicago. The strike by the Chicago Teachers Union is the first strike in twenty-five years. It is happening in a city governed by a Democratic mayor, former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Therefore, it has different dynamics than the fight that [...]